This project is a longitudinal study of children born and reared in alternative family settings from birth through the first six years of life. The investigation will attempt to assess the effects of attitudes, values and child-rearing practices in alternative family environments on the child's health and physical development, cognitive functioning, and social and emotional status. Alternative life styles under study are those of middle class, "turned off" young parents who live in communes, as single mothers who keep their babies, or as unmarried marrieds. These will be compared with the 2-parent nuclear family of today. Modes of assessing the environment include parent interviews, field observational studies, and semi-structured laboratory observations in project offices. Child development will be assessed through standardized neurological and pediatric tests, intelligence tests, and measures of social and emotional behaviors. Data are stored and retrieved through use of the Psychiatric Case History Event System, a generalized information processing system. A research utilization effort involves the training of human resources aides who will interface with existing educational and social institutions to generate their interest in seeing what implications the changing attitudes, values and practices of these alternative families hold for their own services.